If you are worried that something is seriously going wrong with your pets heart then there are a few things that you can check before rushing off to the local animal hospital.

Some of the early stages of heart failure in cats and dogs have no visible signs, heart failure can be diagnosed through an evaluation by a vet.

Things that occur with both cats and dogs with mild to moderate heart failure can sometimes experience heart enlargement, coughing, lethargy and difficulty breathing.

The signs to look for for really severe heart failure is going on you can usually tell by the animal having difficulty breathing (even when at rest), fainting, not wanting to exercise, loss of appetite and weight loss. Sometimes even drooling can be involved so watch carefully to see if your dog is drooling (more than usual).

If some of these symptoms to exist then it is best to go directly to your local animal surgery and have your vet take a look at your pet.

There are many different ways your vet may check to see if your pet has heart problems are EKG, chest x-rays, blood testing, or a heart ultrasound. The ultrasound is going to be the one to be of the most use to you as it gives your vet the ability to see and measure the extent of the heart disease.

If the worst comes to the worst and there is something wrong with your pet then it is not to worry as there are many vets now that are experts in pets cardiology enabling them to even a pacemaker into your pet.

So if you think that your pet may have one or some of these symptoms it is best to at least get it checked out to see if it is a heart problem or not. If left untreated it can result in worse problems or even death of a pet which as everyone who has gone through that knows it is not easy to have a pet pass over.

When a pet breaks a leg it is just as unintentional as when a human does. This can be done from anything from falling down the stairs to a simple fall in the garden. But what can you do when this actually happens when you are not with a private animal hospital? Being a member of a vet centre is key as without it you cannot do very much at all when your animal needs care.

One of the plus sides to actually being a member of one of these animal surgery places is that if something worse happens like your animal happens to have its leg needed to be removed they actually have blood transfusions available for pets now so they will not lose any blood if they are hit by a car or something like that and have to have a limb removed.

It is also true to say that many smaller animals have thier limbs removed too and can carry on with a perfectly normal life. Wheelie the tortoise is an example of this as she had to have three of her limbs taken away and was fitted with a set of wheels. Since the wheels have been fitted she has started to mate which before she didn't do which just goes to show how even the smallest of animals can be helped out.

A cast is a lot better than putting the animal down surely which is why going to a vet when your animal starts to limp could be just a bit of old age arthritis or something more sinister like bone cancer. Bone cancer is a very painful thing for a dog or other animal to have and if you suspect something it is far better to have it amputated than to make the animal suffer in pain.

So if it’s a broken leg or even a heart problem a vet will either treat it with a cast or using pet’s cardiology and make your pet feel that much better!